


Retinentia

by agenderteddy (drugstoreperfume)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Draco is emo, Harry loses his memory because reasons, Hermione has to hold shit together like usual, M/M, Memory Loss, Not Epilogue Compliant, Romance, future smut but not yet bear w me, maybe angst???, shit happens
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-26 08:09:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6230764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drugstoreperfume/pseuds/agenderteddy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry loses 3 years of his memory and ends up completely confused in the house of his school enemy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Iactura

It’s dark.

I open my eyes but it doesn’t change anything - the darkness is all around me. I look down and I cannot see my feet or feel the floor but I am standing. I outstretch both arms and feel nothing but empty air. My pupils strain as they dilate but there is no light here, none at all. There is nothing here but me, and even that makes me unsure. I call it here, but is it a place? Is it nowhere? If death is light, then what is this?

I cannot hear my heartbeat even in the silence and this terrifies me, but I hear voices. Whipping my head around, I seek for a source but still there is nothing but impenetrable darkness. There is no direction to the sound because the sound is everywhere. The sound is outside of this cocoon of darkness, like noises from outside the womb. Someone is talking and their voice grips my insides. Magnetized, I stumble through the darkness towards the voice but it is everywhere. I cannot move towards it. I stand still, chest empty, and listen to the voice.

Hands brush over me and I start. There is nothing in the darkness but I feel hands cupping my jaw, thumbs brushing circles into the delicate skin beneath my ear. I almost try to be scared but I’m not scared. I fall into the hands - swooning, but I won’t admit it - and let them caress me. Lips kiss my head, my hairline. I close my eyes and they kiss my eyelids. They kiss my nose and I almost giggle; it is more comforting having my eyes closed to the darkness. They brush like angel wings over my lips and breathe into me a heartbeat, tentatively springing to life into my chest. Their fingertips are cold.

_ Whoever you are, _ I think,  _ my heart beats for you. _

The words echo around in the nothingness and I feel silly - I’m nowhere near poetic enough for words like that. 

The hands leave my face. They drop. I open my eyes to the darkness but there is still nothing and now this scares me. I chase the hands but they are nowhere. My heart, now beating, pounds like a drum in my chest and cannot rest. My breath comes easily and dissipates into the shadows around me.

“I’m sorry.”

I speak, for the first time, voice cracking. “Why are you sorry? Who are you? Where are you? Where am I? Who -”

Who am I?

I blink and my eyes open.

 

***

 

I wake up in someone’s arms.

I jerk forwards, sitting bolt upright in - what is this, a bed? I fist the white sheets around me, gripping the silk for comfort, and stare around. I am in a room I don’t know. The walls are white but there are Polaroids hung on a string across the wall over the back of the bed, pictures too small for me to see but in abundance. Fairylights are draped over the bed posts and books are stacked haphazardly up the wall, pages dogeared and bookmarked. The smell of cinnamon, fresh linen and baking permeates the air and soothes my quickened breathing; I feel at home in this room but I don’t remember ever being here, nor can I explain why I am here.

The last thing I can remember is pulling on my coat at the door of Hermione and Ron’s new apartment, throwing them a forced smile.

 

“I don’t like you going out like this,” said Hermione, rising from the sofa.

“Hermione, I’m fine,” I assured her, “I do this all the time. I haven’t died yet.” For back up, I moved my smile to Ron, but I got nothing in return but a concerned look.

“Mate, I say this a lot but I really think Hermione is right.” Ron leaned back into the sofa and folded his arms. “It can’t be good for you to just - drink your feelings away.”

Sighing, I resumed fastening my coat. “You know I see a therapist. Who suggested that?”

I didn’t earn a smile from Hermione, but her eyes softened and she moved to fix my collar. “And you’re going to keep seeing her.”

“I’m going to keep seeing her.”

“Because you need it!”

I rolled my eyes, but I humoured her. “Because I need it, yeah, yeah, okay.”

Ron called from the sofa, “Even if it is a Muggle thing!”

Hermione frowned. “Just because it’s a Muggle thing doesn’t make it -”

“You’re just encouraging him,” I laughed. “Yeah, even if it is a Muggle thing, Ron! Hermione’s a Muggle thing too and that doesn’t make her bad!”

“It doesn’t, and don’t I know it.” Ron grinned and looked at Hermione, who averted her eyes with a tiny smile and turned to me.

“Promise me this is the last night there, Harry.” Her eyes were wide and a deep brown and sad for me. “Promise us both.”

I thought about the bar, about the shitty music blaring and the dirty stools and the flicker of gyrating bodies under the light and the burn of vodka down my throat. I thought about the memories slowly numbing inside of me. I thought about the mindless conversations and the people I never took home but I  _ could _ have done. 

I brushed my thumb down Hermione’s cheek. “I promise.” I almost meant it.

Her eyes stayed on mine for a few seconds longer, but then she nodded. She raked her fingers through my hair, adjusted my collar once more and kissed me on the cheek. “Stay safe out there.”

“Bring someone home for once!” added Ron, smirking. “It’ll be good for you!”

“Ronald!”

I chuckled and opened the door. “Maybe on my last night I should. See you!”

They waved, and I closed the door behind me.

That’s all I can remember.

 

But now I’m here, sitting in a strange room with my toes curled up in silk sheets and my back against a stranger’s thigh, skin tingling from the warmth of their arms. I haven’t turned to look at them yet; I think we are both waiting for the other to speak. I wonder how long we will sit in silence until one of us breaks it. The only sounds are the birds outside of the window and my ragged breathing slowing.

They break it first. “Are you in pain?”

I don’t turn around to face the voice - it is deep, and melodic, and familiar. “No. Should I be?”

“No.”

I still don’t turn around and whoever is behind me doesn’t say anymore. Instead, I pinch the silk of the bed between my thumb and forefinger and roll it back and forth. “Where am I?”

The breath of the person behind me cuts off and naturally I turn.

I recoil.

“Malfoy?” I exclaim, hurling myself backwards onto the floor.

He reaches forward as if to stop my fall but his hand falls short. His mouth is open, his lips pink, his face drawn. He’s changed. His hair, while still light, is no longer cropped and slicked back but longer and loose around his face, curling slightly around his jaw. His bone structure, though still sharp, was less of the jut of defiant childhood and more of the chisel of young adulthood. The gentle morning light had cast his face into a soft eclipse, but his eyes were not light. The bones on his hand protruded as he half-extended it towards me. Then, with a breath, he drew back onto the bed and let his shoulders drop.

“Merlin, I thought for a second…”

“Malfoy, where am I?” I whisper.

He doesn’t look at me.

“Why am I here?”

He smooths out the bed where I sat, still averting his eyes from me. Rage bubbles inside of me, fuelled by my confusion.

“Look me in the fucking eyes and tell me what the fuck is going on,” I spit.

This earns me a look but I can’t decipher his expression. “If you want information from me it'd probably suit you to be nice to me.”

“Want - information - have you kidnapped me?”

He laughs shockedly. “Kidnapped you? You think that little of me?”

“Well, to be honest, you haven’t given me any reason to believe you wouldn’t,” I object.

He looks at me for a second before shaking his head and laughing. “Yeah, I guess you would say that.”

“...Why would I say that?”

He laughs again and this really lights the fire in me.

“Right, you fucking prick, you tell me what is going on right now or God fucking help you…”

“What, are you going to take me down without a wand?”

I reach into my back pocket, lifting my bum from the floor, and find nothing. The rage in me freezes and turns cold. “Where is it?”

“So many questions.” Malfoy leans over to the dresser by the bed and pulls the top drawer open. “It’s in there.” He shuts it again. “However, I’d rather you didn’t have your wand until I’ve explained anything.”

“Well, explain then!” I lurch forward and lock eyes with him.

He keeps my gaze for a few seconds but breaks it after a moment, shutting his eyes and swallowing, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “You lost your memory.”

My memory. My  _ memory _ . But - no. I remember Hermione. I remember Ron. I remember Hogwarts. I sure as hell remember Malfoy. “You’re a liar. I remember things -”

“Not your entire memory, you fucking idiot,” he snaps, venom in his voice.

“How much of it, then?”

Malfoy once again locks me under his gaze. “How old do you think you are?”

“Do I think I am - I’m twenty!”

Fists gripping the sheets, Malfoy ducks his head and shakes it. “Twenty. God.”

Fear rips at my stomach with its ruthless claws. “Malfoy, how long?”

“Don’t - Merlin, don’t call me Malfoy.”

“How fucking long?”

“Three years.”

“Bullshit.” I’m frozen.

“He really took everything. Shit.” He tenses and he is shaking slightly, wisps of hair falling into his eyes.

“You fucking liar.”

“You think I’d say it to torture you?”

“How am I meant to know what you mean by saying it?”

He is silent, pushing his hair back with a trembling hand.

I can’t bring myself to get to my feet so I curl up, holding my knees with my arms and staring at the wooden floor with a gaze to burn holes. “How am I meant to know anything at all?”

Once again, like earlier, his hand lifts towards me but stops short. It remains there, poised in the air, like it acted against his will, and I watch it with increasing confusion. Like this situation isn’t confusing enough. His hand drops.

“Where’s Ron and Hermione?”

“Ron and Hermione - fucking hell, Potter, I don’t know where your poxy friends are.”

“But I was just with them -”

“You were with them three years ago! Three years!”

“That isn’t true!”

“You’re twenty-three years old!”

“I don’t believe you!”

He growls in the back of his throat and stands up. Reaching out, he finally makes contact with me. He grasps my wrist and drags me out of the room, feet stomping.

“Where are we going?” I exclaim, feet stumbling along the floor and down the stairs.

“I’m not taking you to a fucking torture chamber, Potter.”

I never thought about a torture chamber but now the idea was in my head and I resisted his pull.

“Come - on!” He pushes me in front of him and steers me, hands on my shoulders, to the sitting room where he nudges me onto the sofa and turns to the TV.

“What are you doing?” I turn in the sofa seat to see him gripping the back of the sofa firmly, clumsily handling a TV remote.

“Showing you the news.”

“You know how to work a TV?” I know it was the wrong thing to say and a bit wrong for the situation, but it felt odd to see Malfoy with something so… Muggle.

He eyes me like I am an absolute idiot. “Yes?”

“Since when have you worked a TV?”

“You showed me how to work the damn -” He cuts off, colour slipping from his face. I can see the purple of the bags under his eyes and the shadows of his drawn face better in the sitting room light.

I blink at him behind my glasses.

“Forget it.”

“Malfoy?”

“Watch the news.”

“But Malfoy -”

“Shut up and watch the fucking news!”

Disgust clings to the back of my throat like a bad smell. “I forgot how much of a prick you are.”

He starts a little bit but swallows back whatever expression visited his face fleetingly. “You forgot a lot of things. Now watch.”

My retort dies and I turn to the TV. The news anchor sits in the same seat as I remember but speaks about issues I have absolutely no context for. She speaks about events I have no idea about. I’m just more confused by it than ever. “Yeah, so what?”

“So what?”

“This doesn’t prove that I lost my memory.”

He slumps forward with pure exasperation. “Do you have any clue what she is even going on about?”

“Well - no, but that doesn’t prove shit.”

“Oh my God.” He walks backwards to the dining room table and opens his laptop. Leaning forward, he jiggles his leg and taps his fingers against the keyboard and sucks his lower lip and looks entirely too flustered and annoyed to be Draco Malfoy.

I sit there watching him. “Take your time.”

“Do you even know how long these things take to load up? Probably faster than what you can remember.”

“You still haven’t proved that, you know.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do, you little shit - here! Thank you!” He starts typing, fingers moving like lightning over the keys.

I get up from the sofa, abandoning the TV and its bewildering stories, and stand behind him. It’s almost comedic that Malfoy has typed into Google, ‘What is the date today?’, until I see the date.

March 23rd 2003

I almost throw up.


	2. Nuptiae

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry finds out what he's missed in the 3 years he cannot remember, without Malfoy.

Merlin, he’s right.

I stumble backwards, resting against the back of the sofa for support. As the world spins around me, Malfoy eyes me from his position leaning with his elbows against the dining room table, jaw set and face emotionless. Three imprints of the scene in front of me circle round my head and I cannot focus my vision. My breath comes in sharp inhales but I try to focus on the scents coming swiftly into me, the gentle linger of morning coffee and air freshener and a well cleaned house. I switch my focus on the graze of the sofa fabric against my back to ground myself more, and the three imprints morph into two. All the while I gather myself, Malfoy rests his eyes on me and doesn’t move. Nobody speaks until I swallow back the rising bile in my throat and lift my eyes again to his face, as expressionless as before.

“2003, huh?” I mutter.

The left corner of his mouth twitches upwards and he says, “So, you believe me now?”

“I - I don’t want to.” My eyes close. I enjoy these few seconds of darkness, shutting out all of my problems, but I know that I can’t keep my eyes shut from my issues for long, because it just isn’t  _ me _ and if I don’t have me then what have I got?

“Not wanting to is a step closer than what we had before,” he replies with an aggravating tone to his voice like he’s trying to be  _ nice _ to me. It just rubs me in all the wrong ways and I feel my fingernails biting into the palms of my hand as I clench my fists.

“I guess,” I bite back with gritted teeth.

He quirks an eyebrow at me and narrows his eyes at my response, before sighing and shutting his laptop. Once the laptop goes silent, I realise that there had been a distressing amount of hot air coming from the fan that had blended into the ambience of the room like white noise. Noticing this himself, Malfoy touches the fan with a finger. He jerks back with a swear word in his breath and shakes his head to himself.

“Piece of shit,” he mumbles, maybe to nobody. “Ha - Potter, do you want a cup of tea?”

The anger bubbling inside of me creeps into my mouth and flavours my words. “What I want is to speak to someone who knows what’s going on. How about, I don’t know, my actual  _ friends _ ? Hermione and Ron? Heard of them?”

He recoils melodramatically at my words, placing a hand delicately over his heart. “Holy fuck, Potter, and you say I’m a prick?”

I stare at him, jaw taut.

“All I did is offer you a cup of tea. I know you’ve missed three years of maturation but grow the fuck up.” He’s smiling but I can see the bite of his teeth at the back of his mouth and almost hear them grinding back and forth. I really can’t decipher him. “Why are you staring at me?”

“I can’t figure you out.”

He merely looks back at me, arm on the door handle to the kitchen.

“Your face, your voice - it all confuses me.”

His eyebrow raises again - always the right one, so maybe he can only raise one of them - and he replies, “Maybe that’s why you spent so much time at Hogwarts hating me.”

“Maybe that. Or maybe the fact that you were working for Voldemort.”

He flinches for a second at the name but very quickly composes himself, his eyes covering once again with a film of indifference. “Possibly.”

I sigh, slumping back into the sofa with an ease that would seem impossible a few minutes ago. “I just - really can’t get a hold on you.”

“It has only been, what, fifteen minutes? Twenty?”

I don’t reply, I just squint harder through my glasses, as if a different focus would help me decipher his emotions.

“Don’t work yourself too hard. I don’t matter.”

I don’t correct him. Silently, he stands up straight and walks into the kitchen to put the kettle on.

“Hey, Malfoy, didn’t I say that I wanted to see Ron and Hermione -”

“They were going to come over already,” he snaps back at me. He rummages through the cupboard above the sink angrily and I don’t trust him with the china. “I didn’t know when you were going to wake up so I said they could come over for lunch.”

“You’re giving them lunch?” I repeat in disbelief.

He growls and whips his head around to face me. “Things aren’t like they were at Hogwarts.”

“What do you mean?”

“You ask so many fucking questions.”

I don’t respond; I merely wait for him to elaborate. To fill the silence, the kettle screams.

Malfoy lurches to shut up the screeching and pours the hot water into a mug with a dragon on it. “People have changed since then. People have grown. It’s different now.”

This throws something cold into the pit of my stomach. The fact that I was there, experiencing these changes, but not able to have learned anything from them, or understand them, made an icy hand grip my intestines and twist. “What time is it?”

“Damn it, Potter, look at the fucking news!”

I turn my head and check the time. 11:24. I watch the TV but I don’t listen to the news anchor talking. I expect to hear the clink of Malfoy’s spoon on the edge of the mug but his stirring is silent, the fucking posh twat with his flawless tea etiquette. Malfoy’s voice rings again in my head, reminding me that he doesn’t matter, but I am hyper-aware of everything he does in my confusion. Maybe I’m looking for some explanation as to why I am here in the shape of his limbs as he lounges against the doorframe, or the angle of his wrist as his spoon goes round and round in his mug, or the tiny shake to his hands as he clasped the delicate handle of his china, or the lopsided twist to his mouth as he bites the inside of it. I am no longer watching the news, I find, and I flush and turn away from him again, rounding the sofa to sit on it once more.

Tea in hand, Malfoy lingers in the front room with me. He hugs the walls with his presence like he doesn’t want to be near me but he can’t bring himself to leave. Luckily, he doesn’t annoy me too much with his presence. When I face away from him watching the news, I almost forget he is there. His being there was only punctuated by small crackles of spells, warming charms and spells to straighten the paintings. He doesn’t say anything about my posture on the sofa or call me rude so I pull my socked feet up onto the sofa and curl up. The news channel has been talking about weapons of mass destruction for a while now and I was understanding the business in Iraq no more now than I did just glancing at the TV earlier. I’ve never felt so lost, so out of my depth - I always knew what was going on in the world and now I had been thrown into a cyclone of new information and different people. It terrifies me.

Malfoy meanders back into the kitchen to place his china on the side of the sink. “Do you want any breakfast?”

My stomach growls in response.

“Would you rather wait until lunch?” He waves his wand and soap suds wash over his mug.

“You don’t need to cook for me. It’s not like we’re friends,” I replied, as kindly as I could force myself.

He puts the mug back in the cupboard and bites his deep breath back. “It’s so difficult to be nice to you, Potter.”

“Like you would be anyway,” I laugh

“I probably would be if you didn’t talk to me like I’d just murdered your true love or something.”

“You were a dick to me all through school.”

“You cornered me in a bathroom and tried to kill me!”

“You were a Death Eater!”

“That was five years ago!”

“How do I know you’ve changed?”

“You can’t remember the last three years so don’t fucking talk to me about not knowing if I’ve changed!” His face is red, his hair dishevelled, his shoulders square.

“There’s no need to swear at me,” I respond self-righteously.

“I - you - Merlin!” Malfoy storms out of the kitchen and past me towards the stairs. “I just asked if you wanted lunch!”

Against my better wishes, I start to feel bad for him. I’ve never seen Malfoy so obviously emotional before, except when he was throwing a hissy fit at the age of thirteen. However, my pride holds my tongue and keeps my apology deep down inside of me.

“Anyway, your  _ friends  _ -” he hisses the word “- are here, so go and talk to them and stop pissing me off.”

He darts up the stairs and out of my sight. A few seconds later, I hear a door slam. I repress my remorse like a bad memory and look away from the top of the staircase where he disappeared to the front door. It feels impolite to open somebody else’s front door, but as Malfoy has shut himself in his bedroom like an insolent child (fucking prick), I decide that it’d be less rude of me to open his door than it would be to leave Hermione and Ron outside. Besides, I’m desperate to talk to them. I rush to the door and open it.

I have never been so relieved to see Hermione. Her warmth, her pleasant glow, radiates around her and eases every tense muscle in my body. She spills inside like honey from the bottle and wraps her arms around me. We fall to the floor onto our needs, saying nothing, holding one another. I clutch her tightly to me like a life ring. When she pulls away, I peruse her face. Three years - three entire years - have lengthened her curls which are pulled back into a fluffy ponytail. Time has rounded and softened her body, deepened her dimples, but she smells exactly the same, that blend of something spicy and floral and then something  _ clean _ that is purely Hermione. Even in a place I do not know, I allow her to wrap herself around me, a blanket of comfort, and feel like I am back at home. The texture of her hair is the same, fluffy and big and slightly wiry but still soft against my hands. Her arms around me grip me just as tight and her face buries itself in my neck. For a few moments, seconds or minutes or hours, we allow ourselves to melt into the comfort of one another.

I break the hug first, nudging her shoulders back to look her in the eyes. “Hello.”

She blinks back tears from her eyes and responds, “Hello,” her voice shaking slightly.

I want to reach out to comfort her more but there is too much going on and I cannot fit her sadness into me. Instead, I ask, “Where’s Ron?”

She looks less sad and more resigned. “He said he isn’t going to come round right now?”

“Why not? I need to see him! I have no idea what I’ve missed...”

“He decided it would be best if he waited a while before coming to visit.”

“Hermione, I lost -” My memory. Those words die like a sound into a vacuum.

She tucks a stray hair back into her ponytail and avoids my eyes. “I know, I know, but you know Ron. He just - doesn’t know what to make of the whole thing yet.”

“He thinks he has it bad?” I respond, shocked.

“Harry, we know that this is awful for you, but he really doesn’t know how to respond to it. I think he’s scared.”

“And - and I’m not scared?”

“We  _ know _ , Harry.”

I’m being selfish. With a sigh and an apology in my eyes, I slump back onto my knees. I think Hermione forgives me.

“Just give him time,” she says. “He’ll come.”

I nod and don’t reply. After that, we kneel on the floor (thankfully well cleaned by Malfoy) and look at one another, unsure of what to say. 

Hermione lifts her hand to her face and I see her ring finger glittering.

“Hermione, you’re married?” I enquire, beaming.

She smiles sadly. “Yeah. Ron and I got married a few months ago.”

“Oh - congratulations!”

Keeping her eyes on my smile for too long caused her sadness to crumble. “Thank you, Harry.”

“Why the hell wasn’t I there? Have we not been best friends for nine years?”

“Twelve years,” Hermione corrects before continuing, “and you were there.”

“I - I was?”

“You lost your memory, remember?”

The smile drops from my face and I stare at my hands. “I can’t even remember - my best friends’ wedding.” Saying it confirms it and I feel nauseous.

“We thought that maybe they would only take some parts of your memory. We didn’t think everything.” She reaches to take my hand, her fingers trembling and diamond glittering in the light. “God, that’s so cruel.”

The questions build up but I don’t voice them, not while Hermione looks so broken.

“It feels wrong to have spent three years with you and for you to remember none of them. It’s like you’ve died.”

I sit with her on the floor, thumb rubbing circles into her palm, until she lifts her head and looks at me. In the gap, I give her my questions. “Some parts of my memory? Why only some parts of my memory?”

“We’ll talk about it once we know more.”

This answer doesn’t satisfy me. “What memories would they have taken from me? What -”

“Harry.” Her tone shocks me into silence. “I’m looking into it. We all are.”

I trust her. “So - you think maybe I could get my memories back?”

“We don’t know,” she admits, “but we’re certainly hoping so. I’ve found a couple dozen books that could give me an answer, but they have a lot of dark magic in them so I’m going to have to get them checked through even after I read them.”

Trust Hermione to have thrown herself into reading. The normality of that soothes me and reminds me that no matter how much time has passed that I have no recollection of, some things never change. “And is Ron helping?”

“Of course Ron is helping.” Hermione smiles at me. “He may not be here right now but he’s been fretting over you for days. You’re best friends, remember?”

“I don’t really remember much right now.”

We laugh together and it feels right. 

“Is there anything I can do to help?” I ask once the giggles have died down.

She shakes her head, hair bouncing behind her. “What you need to do is rest up.”

“Rest up - here?”

“Where else?”

“Not here! I don’t even know why I’m here!”

Hermione moves to speak but closes her mouth so I continue.

“I just - want to go home.”

Her eyebrows draw together. “Here is home.”

“What?”

“Harry, you  _ live _ here.”

The words repeat in my head but no matter how long they go round and round, I cannot fit any context to them. I feel like as the day progresses I am getting gradually more and more bewildered. “Live - here - with  _ him _ ?”

“Don’t call him  _ him  _ like that, Harry.”

“Wh - why are you defending him? What the fuck happened in these three years?”

I know she wants to tell me but she doesn’t, annoyingly. “It isn’t my place to tell you.”

“What, like he’s going to tell me. Okay.”

“Maybe he will if you give him a chance, Harry.”

“You’re - defending Malfoy! The world has flipped upside down.”

“Just try and be nice to him, will you? He’s been through a lot as well. Not that you haven’t!” she rushes to add, making me feel bad that she needs to.

I want to argue with her; I want to demand that Malfoy has demonstrated that there is nothing in his heart but evil. But somewhere in the back of my mind, a little nagging voice tells me that Hermione, like always, is probably right and that I should listen, maybe. As much as I hate that little logical voice, it shuts me up.

“So… Can I see your wedding photos?”

Hermione lights up like a lamp and pulls out an envelope. When my eyebrows raise, she laughs and says, “I guessed that you would ask, and I would have showed you them anyway even if you didn’t.”

We move over to the sofa - I glance up at the staircase to make sure Malfoy isn’t monitoring our bad manners - and she pulls photos out of the envelope to show me. In the first photo, Ron is tall and smart looking, almost dapper, in a fitted suit and a little black bowtie. What made him look the best, however, was the bright smile on his face, the glitter in his eyes, the love radiating through the photo to me. Hanging onto his arm was Hermione, her hair not smoothed down this time but pinned, full, covered in flower pins, completely natural but absolutely beautiful. Her dress does not puff out like a ballgown but hugs her hips and legs, blossoming out at the bottom like an inverted calla lily. Matching with Ron was the twinkle on her face, her teeth smaller than they used to be but still large in her mouth, her lips peeling back to show them without shame. The sunlight glows from behind them as if the weather, the sun, all of space, was smiling down on them. Love glows and gives a corporeal form in the photo. I hold it in my hands for longer than usual, smiling down at the two people I love so dearly.

She takes the photo from me and hands me another photo, of a group of people in a line, dressed in suits.

“These are groomsmaids,” Hermione chuckled. “Ron found it unfair how I got to choose my friends so he demanded he have his own.”

“Of course he did,” I laugh, comforted at the idea of a Ron that I am familiar with.

“That’s you, on the very left,” she says, pointing at the photo. “It took us ages to convince you to wear that bowtie. You were our best man.”

I look at myself in the photo, glasses glinting in the sunlight. I’m beaming, standing square and proud. I was right in thinking that Ron and Hermione’s love was corporeal because it was contagious - I can see in the eyes and the faces of the ‘groomsmaids’ than their love had spread throughout all of us. Beside me was Malfoy, standing just under an inch taller than me, hair artfully pinned back in a way that was no longer snake-like but more prim and proper, looking just right in a suit and bowtie. He has his hand on my back and he smiles too, a smaller smile but a smile nonetheless. I can’t comprehend how he is touching me and I am still smiling, comforted by this, staring into the camera with a glow in my eyes. Malfoy is glowing too. Next to Malfoy is Neville, then George, then Dean, then Seamus (Seamus had his hand on Dean’s back just like Draco had on mine, despite being several inches shorter), then Bill, then Percy, then Charlie, all in a line, all beaming - even Percy. At the end, standing in a tiny crown and a beam, is Teddy, hair wild in pink spikes around his face.

“He had a lot of groomsmaids,” I say.

Hermione smiles and replies, “It’s so sad how we love so many people.”

It isn’t sad at all, but I chuckle. She hands me the next photo: the bridesmaids. At the start were Ginny and Luna, arms linked and tiny crown on their heads, the maids of honour. Silvery gold material falls around them, glowing in the sun, bringing out the golden tones in Luna’s pinned-back dark blonde hair and emphasising the flame orange of Ginny’s cascading waves, which have been left loose to fall to her bust. Ginny leans towards Luna’s shoulder and has her head thrown back in laughter. Luna, standing straighter, aims her drooping eyes at the camera and smiles lazily, looking the very picture of peace next to Ginny’s euphoria. Though my relationship with Ginny had ended badly, my heart gives a pang at seeing her looking so joyful - she looked absolutely beautiful. Next to the two crowned maids of honour is Fleur, then Angelina, then Hannah Abbott, and then, standing tiny at the end, was a beautiful little girl I had never seen before, so small that her golden dress nearly swallowed her up. Warm blonde curls fanned around her face like a cloud and her eyes, framed with dark lashes, glittered with blue.

Hermione, sensing my confusion, says, “That’s Bill and Fleur’s daughter, Victoire.”

“Victoire,” I repeat, trying to fit the French into my mouth.

“Teddy has taken quite a liking to her already,” giggles Hermione.

“Teddy - Teddy, how is he?” I rush to ask, reminded of my godson.

“He’s fine, he’s fine. He’s nearly five now. I don’t think he fully understands the situation,” admits Hermione, “so if he starts talking about something you have no idea about, just nod and smile.”

I offer Hermione a smile back, but it’s laced with sadness. The fact that I can’t remember my own godson growing up fills me with a sorrow I cannot shake. I know that Hermione can sense my building sadness so she puts her photos to the side, carefully, and reaches to clasp my hand again. She holds my hand tight and I hold her back and she grounds me. Even in an unfamiliar place, I am grounded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again, please give me your feedback in the comments and this fic is unbeta'd!! i hope you enjoy and look forward to the next chapter!!

**Author's Note:**

> please tell me what you think of this in the comments! also, this hasn't been checked over or beta'd so like,, help me. i'm tryin my lil best


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